Amy Poehler Perfectly Sums Up Male Privilege

Whether she’s posing as Beyonce at the Emmys or appreciating Madeleine Albright as Leslie Knope on Parks and Rec, we love Amy Poehler. If it was possible, she just won even more of our hearts with her response to Neal Brennan’s question on his Sundance show The Approval Matrix. “Do girls want actual nerds, or do they want a guy who looks like a nerd but is strong?” Brennan wondered. So he asked Poehler how a man should behave amidst such conflicting ideals. Poehler had the best response:

“This feeling that you’re having now, which is like, ‘I’m supposed to be all things,’ is a feeling that women have every day and their whole lives.”

It’s Amy, too, who originated the feminist rallying cry, “I don’t care if you like it.” Tina Fey writes about it in Bossypants, and Rebecca Traister recounts it in her recent piece for New Republic:

"Amy Poehler, then new to "Saturday Night Live," was engaging in some loud and unladylike vulgarity in the writers’ room when the show’s then-star Jimmy Fallon jokingly told her to cut it out, saying, 'It’s not cute! I don’t like it!' In Fey’s retelling, Poehler 'went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him,' forcefully informing him: 'I don’t fucking care if you like it.'"

She also gives girls honest, unscripted advice on “Ask Amy,” a segment featured on her site, “Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls.” But clearly she’s not just encouraging 14-year-olds; we all have something to learn from Amy when it comes to pointing out male privilege and igniting relevant, thoughtful conversation.